All Our Mothers or House of the Rising Son
by sodakey
Summary: It felt a little like looking at an old photograph—Dean and Dad with little Sammy on his lap. Faded and browned. Like memory.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This is just playtime…hobby…uh…recreation. Other people choose to knit, and most of them don't make money from that either ;).

**Rating:** K+

**Spoilers:** Yes, though not for the current season.

Story and characterizations are set in _Season Two_. It's somewhat speculative, and as such could be considered subtly AU, but not yet in any way that couldn't fit into what the series has shown us so far. It assumes you are familiar with the show and characters. This was written before we knew what we knew about Mary. At first, I thought that kripke'd it, but, now I kind of like the implications.

No, I haven't abandoned _Spiral_. This story was actually written before that story. A few weeks back, I began digging things out of my computer (including the final chapters of _Spiral_). I rediscovered this, sent it to a friend for a read-over, and realized it was just about finished.

-------------------------------

_**All Our Mothers (or Devil in the House of the Rising Son)**_

_©2008kso_

---------------------

"No, no, he was bigger than that!" Epper jigged a fast circle, arms held wide, up and out, like he was about to hug a fat man. "Bigger than the door," he insisted, tongue waggling through the toothless gap at the front of his mouth. His hands melded together above his head. Laying index fingers flat against each other, he gun-pointed at Sam. "Bigger than him even."

Dean's lips twitched. He laced his own fingers, leaning elbows on knees, grasped hands hanging down. "Wow," he said seriously. He kept his eyes on the boy, Sam in his peripheral. "That must have been really scary."

Sam's foot slid over the shag, pressing down hard on Dean's toe.

Dean smiled over his grimace.

Epper's mother smiled also. A fine-boned, weary hand settled gently on her son's head. "Sweetie, let your brother speak."

Epper harrowed up a put-upon sigh. "Tell them, Caleb."

The other boy moved minutely, a precise shift from one foot to the other, large green eyes wary and evaluating. He had freckles on his nose and a self-denied lonely air about him. It made Dean's collar feel too tight. "He was big," the boy confirmed, voice low, but clear and resonant. Shadowed eyes flashed furtively at Sam then back to Dean. "And tall. He was tall."

Dean's eyes tipped towards his brother, showing his amusement.

Sam pointedly didn't notice.

Caleb faltered forward another inch. "He had curly hair…and wide shoulders."

"Reeaaally wide," interjected Epper, another grand gesture spinning out his hands. "And glowy. Wide and glowy!"

Janine reached forward, arms smoothly circling her younger son's body, pulling him quietly into her chest. "Sorry." She handed Dean a tired look. "He's always had an active imagination. Top it off, his class has been getting ready for the first grade Halloween skit and he's heard one too many stories about ghosts." She patted Epper's short buzzed hair, palm running over it, smoothing him against her. "Go on, Caleb. Tell the officers what you saw."

Caleb examined his toes. "He _was_ kind of glowing," he whispered. It rang without effort, filling the hollow room.

Janine looked stricken. "Caleb, honey."

Sam lifted a hand. "It's alright," he said. "Active imagination or not, we just need it in his own words. Anything he says could give us a clue to your intruder's identity, or help us know how he's getting inside."

The woman nodded and swallowed, a brittle slide of her throat. She stretched an apologetic hand to Caleb's shoulder, but spoke distinctly to Sam. Her eyes were watery. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just so glad someone's finally taking this seriously. The other officers treated us…me ... they treated me like I was some sort of strung-out…" Her lips thinned together, smile tight and gracious.

Lightning flashed quiet in Caleb's eyes.

Dean felt his stomach harden. He felt the subtle, involuntary pull of back muscles on his spine, heat in his shoulders. He could imagine how they might have treated her. Sympathetic the first time, annoyed the second. Degrading the third.

His knuckles ached.

Janine shook her head. She cleared the emotion from her throat. "And after that write up in the newspaper…no one would even come out. They'd hang up on me or even…swear at me over the phone." Her fingers worried over Caleb's shoulder. "So, the last thing I want you to think is that this is some sort of…prank, or that we're wasting your time."

Sam's knee bumped softly into Dean's.

Dean blinked and remembered to breathe in. He glanced at Sam's face. There were two lines between his eyebrows, a questioning pinch in his eyes and mouth.

Dean looked away, back to Janine, to the gouges in the off-white wall behind her, the clash of the wall against the murky yellow in her plaid couch. He eased his clenched hands, popped his thumb knuckles and forced a breath out, consciously loosening his shoulders.

The itch of Sam's gaze lingered on his face, but when Sam spoke, it was to the mother. "We understand," he said, soft voice and expression leaning towards her.

Worry lines unzipped on her forehead. "This whole thing has just been so…" She stopped, abrupt, like her voice had been filed off, scattered shavings of it loose on the carpet about their feet. She ran two fingers under her eye. "Sheriff Williams said he'd take me in if I called again, and…my kids. I can't risk… I've tried to do everything. I put extra locks on the windows and doors, and he still got in. Lately, I've even thought of moving, but, my job, I don't…I wouldn't know where to go."

"It's okay," Sam reiterated, bending forward, hands folding between his knees mirroring the clench of Dean's fingers.

"I'm actually surprised he assigned you two the case."

"We're state investigators, ma'am," Sam explained. "We don't answer to Sheriff Williams. Your case was reassigned to us because it'd been unsolved. We're here to help you. We believe you, and we're going to get to the bottom of this. Okay?" Sam's eyes were earnest. Dean could tell without looking. The earnest eyes were laid out starkly in the sound of his voice.

Janine smiled, weak and watery. She nodded again.

Dean focused back on the eight-year-old. "Caleb," he said. "When the man came in, did he say anything to you?"

Caleb's eyes checked his mother, then traveled out from under his lashes and the tucked down angle of his chin, straightening on Dean. "He didn't say anything," he said, clear, low, and distinct. Soft as it was, he had a commanding voice, one that would never be ignored if he ever dared to use it, but it was his eyes that kept Dean's attention. His eyes said something different than his voice. His eyes shouted around the lie. And they shouted for Dean to see it.

"Okay," allowed Dean, easy and solemn. He unclenched his fingers and stretched a hand out, waiting.

Caleb held his gaze. After a moment, he flexed his fingers and reached back, cool-dry palm setting solidly in Dean's.

They shook firmly.

"Okay."

-----------------------------

"So, what was that about?" Sam asked, stepping off the curb into the empty street, watching Dean dig keys from his pocket.

"What was what about?"

"That handshake with Caleb."

Dean shrugged. He scuffed a piece of gravel across the road. The line of his shoulders stayed casual.

Sam waited.

"Nothing, really," Dean answered. "He's just…I think he's feeling us out. He has something more he wants to tell us but he's not sure if he should. And he doesn't want his mom around when he does."

Sam peered back at the house. Caleb was standing in the window, face stolid. He dropped the curtain when Sam caught his eye.

"Man, poor Epper," muttered Dean, stopping near the driver's door. "Can you imagine going through life with a name like that?"

"Janine said it was a family name, short for Epperson."

"I heard what she said. Family name or not, I'll bet you fifty bucks I know exactly what the kids are calling him at school."

"I don't know," mused Sam, rounding the front fender. "He seems pretty outgoing—probably makes friends easy enough. Caleb though…"

Dean didn't say anything, but his eyes tightened as he reached for the handle on his door. Sam closed his mouth and swallowed back the will to push. "So, what do you think?" he asked casually. "Stake out the house tonight?"

Dean scrubbed at his hair, leaving his elbow on the Impala's roof and his hand on his forehead, like maybe he had a headache. "Yeah." He screwed his lips briefly to the side then opened his mouth. "I think we should ask Janine if we can hook an EMF in the boys' room then see if she'll let us monitor it from inside the house."

"From the kitchen," Sam said, stepping back to swing his door open. "They've also seen him in the kitchen."

"Should be easy enough," Dean mused. "We'll just tell her it's a special, high-tech, police alarm system."

"Right," Sam snorted. "A high-tech alarm system made of old walkman parts. Very twenty-first century."

Dean frowned. His hand dropped to his heart. "That hurts, Sammy. That really really hurts."

Sam laughed through his nose, and shook his head. He gestured toward the road. "Fine. Let's go, check the research, see if the kids' description can help us figure out who's haunting them."

"Forget who," Dean sniped, closing his door in unison with Sam's. "I just want to figure out what this fugly's pattern is, because so far? Random."

Sam nodded. He hooked his elbow on the back of the seat, staring again toward the house. Caleb was back in the window. And Epper. _Caleb and Epper. Sam and Dean._ Their names didn't flow the same, but who knew what sounded like it fit together until you'd sent it through your head enough times. The two brothers didn't drop the curtain this time, and when Sam lifted his hand, Epper waved enthusiastically.

The rumble of the engine rolled up Sam's spine, growling smoothly as Dean pulled away from the curb. Janine appeared briefly, a gentle shadow behind her boys, drawing them away from the window.

"Do you ever think about it?" Sam mumbled absently, left peering at a droopy curtain, a forlorn porch, a distancing blue house with chipped paint. One of dozens the Winchesters could have lived in.

"About what?"

"What Mom would have done with us if…" Sam started to trail off, some part of his brain realizing the morbidity of the tumbling question. But it was there, half out, half in, teetering in a handstand on his lower lip. He shrugged, already apologetic. "…if it had been Dad instead of Mom?"

The lightness left Dean's face, muscles in his shoulders repositioning, like they had in the house when Janine had talked about the sheriff and being sworn at. "No," he said dully.

Sam watched him. The purposely smooth plane of his brow. His flat mouth. The deliberate ignorance of Sam's scrutiny.

A tiny, familiar ache walked into Sam's chest, sat between his lungs and got comfortable. _Damn it_. "Dean, I didn't mean that how it sounded." And who knew how it sounded to Dean? Demons and deals and secrets and who _knew_ how it sounded to Dean? "We were lucky to have Dad. I'm…glad we did. I know he did the best he could. Okay? Just, sometimes, I wonder…"

"Wonder what?" Dean was staring straight ahead, same dull, monotone voice. Easy, unaffected, but Sam heard the underlying _back off_ and _don't touch this_ cementing it together. Cementing him _away_.

He took his arm off the back of the seat, dropped his hand in his lap and faced forward. "Forget it," he said.

_It was a stupid question to ask, anyway._

------------------------------------

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

-------------------------------

_**All Our Mothers (or Devil in the House of the Rising Son)**_

_©2008kso_

_--------------------------------------------------------_

_Chapter Two_

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 3am Dean stood at the window, staring into the dark street with a cup of coffee in his hand. A sound behind him had him spinning for his gun.

Janine stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Her hair was bunched up on top of her head, a sleeping Epper was clasped to her chest. Her eyes widened. She took a startled step back, expression already apologetic. The brief flash of fear, Dean hated. The apologetic look, he'd grown accustomed to. Janine wore it constantly, just under her skin. Like she'd become used to seeing herself as an imposition on the world.

He quickly lowered his gun.

"I'm sorry," she said, inching into the yellow light. She spoke quietly. Epper's head was balanced on her shoulder, his skinny arms dangled down her sides.

"He okay?" Dean asked, voice equally low.

"Yes," she said. Her hand smoothed down Epper's back. "He doesn't like to sleep alone. Sometimes he's with me. Sometimes with Caleb. He just doesn't react well if he wakes up by himself, and I…I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd check on things. I shouldn't have startled you." She stopped near the table, near Sam's slumped and sleeping form.

Dean lithely shifted, set his coffee down and carefully tugged their father's journal out from under Sam's elbow, folding it closed, watching the flutter of Sam's hair and the rise and fall of his shoulders to see if his breathing stayed even.

"He's probably too long for it, but, he could have used the couch," Janine whispered. She sounded slightly amused. She'd been gracious in dealing with them so far, since they'd showed up at dark, curious but politely quiet as Dean pried open a two-way radio in the boys' room, and wired his homemade EMF meter into it.

"He was trying not to fall asleep," Dean told her, gesturing at Sam. "But…he was up early researching possible… suspects in the area." And then again all afternoon, finding nothing, and nothing, and more nothing.

"Oh." Her amused expression faltered. It wasn't what Dean intended. "Officer Baker," she began.

Dean fought the urge to say, _Ginger, please_. It'd be a one sided joke with most, but Janine looked like she could actually be a Cream fan. As grateful as she'd been for their presence, she'd likely take a baseball bat to Dean's head, grab her kids and run away screaming if she figured out they weren't who they said they were.

"I want you to know, again, how much I appreciate you taking this seriously. I…"

"You've already thanked us. And you don't have to. We're glad to do it. It's our…it's our job."

She sat tiredly in one of the kitchen chairs, glancing briefly at the two-way radio by Sam's head.

Epper sniffed. His face rolled, eyes squinting, hand coming up to rub at his nose. For a small moment, Dean thought he'd wake. He didn't. The hand dropped down. A sigh hitched out the boy's throat and even, sleepy breathing resumed in his chest.

Janine hummed something soft into his ear.

Dean stared. She wasn't the first single mother they'd come across. She didn't look like Mary. Her hair was dark, her eyes were green.

"It's times like this I wish their father was still around," she said. The sentence emerged thin and delicate, as though the woman had said it to herself.

Dean's blood sped up. There was an uncomfortable tickle low in his throat. He didn't know what to say. "It must not be easy," he stumbled, glancing at Sam's head. "Parenting alone."

He flicked his gaze back to her and saw she was watching him. There was a flash of emotion in her eyes that looked like appreciation and he couldn't imagine why. She reached across the table, set her hand on his forearm for a quick moment, squeezing gently.

The touch burned.

"They're good boys," she smiled out softly. "They don't make it hard."

The low throat tickle steadied to a stone. From the back of his skull, Dean heard voices rising, tiny echoes from his memory. Shouting. Dad and Sam and a thousand pointless fights where what they'd really meant to say was, _I care about you too much to keep myself quiet._

He heard a thousand, _Watch out for Sammy_'s, a few hundred, _I've got to be able to trust you on this, Dean_, a couple dozen, _Do you think this is what Mom would have wanted for us? _He heard Dad telling Sam_, I've made mistakes but I always did the best I could. _

And then Sam and his question: _Do you ever think about it…what Mom would have done with us…? _As though they had the luxury of thinking of life as a series of trade-offs.

_Mom for Dad. _

_Dad for Dean_.

His heart hammered. It felt like betrayal to think about it. One or the other, it would have never been both. Dean would still have never been able to explain it well enough. Sam would've still grown up not understanding why.

Dean might've still ended up staring at a pyre while his brother cried beside him.

He dropped his gaze from Janine, from her eyes, and face, and the gentle fingers she stroked over her youngest son's head. He stood up. "I should," he started, stopping to clear his throat softly. The stone wouldn't move. "I should take a look around the house."

Janine nodded.

Dean fled.

---------------------------

At 6am Sam found Dean asleep on the front porch, stretched on a sturdy looking bench, feet sideways on the ground, gun by his head.

Sam frowned. He reached a palm out to settle against Dean's cool forehead. "Dude," he said, shifting his grip to his brother's shoulder, giving it a tug. "It's freezing out here."

Dean blinked, sluggish. He swept his eyes up over Sam then out down the quiet street. He sat up stiffly. "What time is it?"

Sam frowned some more. "How long have you been out here?"

Dean checked his watch. He rubbed his hands over his face. "Couple hours."

"Yeah, well, you could have stayed inside, you know, where there's this thing called _heat_. Dude, it's October." He handed Dean his coffee.

Dean took it, sipped carefully. "Not that cold."

"Whatever." Sam stood back. "Come inside."

"In a minute, man. Let me wake up."

Sam evaluated with eyebrows drawn, ticking his gaze down Dean's body. "Yeah, fine. Okay," he said, after a minute.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Thank you, _Dad_."

Sam wanted to wince, but he held it in. He relaxed his pose and gave his head a tiny shake. "Hey," he said, holding up his hands. He could feel goose pimples appearing on his arms, under his jacket. "Die of hypothermia, man. See if I care."

Dean sipped coffee, steam rising about his face. He nodded with a grunt and waved Sam away.

Sam sighed, let Dean hear it, and went inside. The screen on the front door slammed when he let go of it. He winced at his own bad manners, checking Janine's reaction when he saw her look back from the kitchen. She didn't comment. She was standing near the stove—eggs, the smell of bacon, and maybe something else, frying in front of her.

Sam picked up their weapons duffle and set it by the front door, then stood up straight. "We're going to leave the alarm set up," he told her, nodding to the two-way radio when she turned around. She'd never even asked how it worked.

She glanced at it, forehead creasing, and nodded.

Sam cleared his throat. "If you hear it…if you hear anything from it, call us right away. Other than that, we're ready to get out of your hair."

She nodded again, spatula in hand, anxiety briefly flooding her eyes. She looked away, turning back to the stove. She was dressed for work. Knee-length skirt, hair tied back. "You don't have to leave so quickly," she returned, glancing over her shoulder. She moved her pan off the burner and turned back to face him. "I've made eggs, enough for you and your partner. Please, Officer Bruce. It's the least I can do."

Sam looked back through the window, seeing Dean's hazy image through the curtain's gauzy film, head tipped against the glass, a stiff and cool shadow. Sam didn't always know what was going on in Dean's head, but he could usually read his intent and Dean wasn't planning to come back inside.

Sam took a deep breath, released it through his nose, looked back at Janine and forced a smile. "I don't think my partner's hungry," he admitted, closing his lips together.

Janine followed his gaze. Three tiny lines appeared between her eyebrows, but she didn't comment. "Well, you at least," she encouraged, looking apologetic. She handed Sam a plate and gestured to the table.

With one last glance at Dean's silhouette, Sam conceded, feeling only slightly awkward. "Thank you."

Voices from up the stairs rolled down to them and a moment later Caleb and Epper were thunking into the room. Caleb straight-lined to the refrigerator, pulling out milk and juice. Epper climbed into the seat next to Sam. "You're eating breakfast with us," he announced, poking Sam's hand like it was a greeting, like they were already old buddies.

Sam smiled, less forced this time. "Looks like."

Caleb watched Sam more warily. His eyes darted around until they located Dean out on the porch. He sat and slid the milk across the table. Sam took the carton and, following the boy's lead, poured himself only half a glass.

"You can have more than that," Janine said as she sat, slight flush in her cheeks.

"This is plenty." He raised the glass in thanks then set it next to his plate. He stabbed eggs with his fork and put them into his mouth. They were good and he told her so. She smiled graciously and turned her attention towards getting Epper to use his napkin, not his sleeve.

"You know," Sam said, when he was almost done. "If you'd like, we could put you in a motel tonight. Until we… until we catch this guy. Just because he didn't come last night doesn't mean he won't come tonight. And until we know what he's…what he's after, you and the boys might feel… safer."

Janine was nodding and then shaking her head, a strand of dark hair escaping her ponytail, stark against her pale neck. "I know. Believe me, I've thought of that. In the last month, I've thought of everything, but, if I can help it…" she glanced at her children. "I don't want to be run out of my own home." Her expression was torn but stoic, creased in all the wrong places. "Since their father died, I've wanted the boys to have as much stability as possible, and…with you here," she waved her hand, gestured out at Dean as well, "I feel like I still have the chance to give them that."

Sam leaned back, closing his mouth. He thought of the Winchester record—thirteen moves in one school-year—and nodded.

Janine's boys grew silent, shoveling their food, ticking eyes to each other, then back and forth between Sam and their mother.

Sam swallowed a dry potato, and took a sip of juice. He shouldn't have brought this up in front of them.

"Are you finished?" Janine asked her sons. "Then go, go, get your backpacks. Epper, make sure you have your reading sheet."

"Caleb's got it," he called, disappearing down the hall.

"He'd forget everything if I let him." Janine smiled lightly. "Except for his number sheets, those he'd hide on purpose."

Sam cleared his throat. "Not Caleb?"

"Oh, Caleb I don't ever have to worry about. Not for a second," she said. "He's very responsible."

"That must be… that must help." He felt his ears burn. He was usually better at this stuff.

Janine nodded, unfazed. She glanced down the hall again. "There was a time I didn't think I'd be able to say that. After his father died, he just…he had a rough time."

Sam swallowed.

"I guess we all did, just, in… in different ways."

A scuffle sounded behind them. Sam turned.

Dean was leaning in the kitchen entryway, one hand loose in his pocket, the other white-knuckled around his coffee mug, his soft entering tread having gone unnoticed.

Sam lifted his eyebrows at him, and got a shrug in response.

"Breakfast?" asked Janine, standing. "Your partner said you weren't hungry."

Sam stood from his chair also, lifted his plate and those of the boys' to carry to the sink, glancing back at his brother covertly.

Dean's eyes were guarded, but he was looking less grey. He lifted his mug to his lips, pale neck stretching as he downed the rest of his coffee. "This was plenty," he said, conjuring a polite smile, handing his empty cup to Sam when Sam reached for it. "Officer Bruce and I should be going. Right, Officer Bruce?"

Sam fought his headshake, forcing his own polite expression, settling Dean's mug in the sink before moving to the exit and hefting the weapons bag. "Thanks again, Janine. Call us if you need anything."

"I will," she said. "I will."

And they were gone.

-------------------------------------

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

-------------------------------

_**All Our Mothers (or Devil in the House of the Rising Son)**_

_©2008kso_

---------------------

_Chapter Three_

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took Dean two tries to get his key to unlock the motel room door, even though he'd figured out the first time they'd entered that you sort of had to jiggle and lift. He blamed the lapse on a lack of sleep and gave the heavy door a hard push when the tumblers finally clicked.

Sam's head lifted, half his face catching the swing of afternoon sun that spilled over Dean's shoulder. It lit the slump of Sam's spine, the forced easiness bricked under his lashes, and his covert attempt to gage Dean's mood.

Dean closed the door, sighed, rubbed his face and stepped over to his brother, stopping when his knees bumped the bed Sam was sitting on and his sleeve brushed Sam's elbow.

"There's not much more here than we had yesterday," Sam explained, cross-legged and bent over, notebook near his knee, pen in his hand. "And by not much, I mean nothing." Two long fingers popped as he stretched his hand to show Dean what he hadn't found. "Nothing that helps us, anyway."

Dean locked his knees against the bed and leaned forward. He saw copies of housing deeds and rental agreements, housing plans and a neighborhood street layout. "Tenant history?" he asked.

Sam nodded.

Dean sniffed. He caught Sam's shoulder in a joggling grip and gave his back a smooth pat. "Good thinking," he said tiredly. He stepped back and shrugged off his jacket, tossed it to the other bed and walked straight into the bathroom.

Sam followed. "Yeah," he said, hitching a shoulder against the doorjamb, voice breathy with frustration. "Good thinking except, there's just nothing. The house was built in 1917. Remodeled in 1952. Again in '84. Three residents died while living there: Two women, one man. None of them were violent deaths and none of them fit the description the boys gave us. And from what you found earlier, nothing remotely traumatic has happened in the house or even in the vicinity. No burial grounds, no wars, feuds, ritual sacrifice, rumors of evil covens… nothing."

Dean stooped over and splashed cold water on his face, sipping a palmful before turning off the faucet. He pressed his face into a blue towel as Sam stepped back to let him out.

"Okay," he said, dropping the towel on the nightstand. "It's not a former tenant, but it's gotta be something." He thumbed his forehead, added his index finger and pinched the skin between his eyes. "I mean, broken chairs, broken lamps." He dropped his hand, waving at Sam. "You smelled the ozone as well as I did. Hell, there were even residual cold spots in the bedroom and kitchen, and that was three days after the last reported sighting. Classic haunting."

Sam came forward, sitting across from him, loose limbed and open. The bedsprings sang bouncily under his weight. "I don't know, Dean, there's just nothing."

Dean picked up the courtesy motel pencil from the nightstand and tapped it against his knee. "Maybe something happened there that no one knows about. Something that didn't make the papers, or the history books."

Sam leaned back, stretched across the bed to snag his notebook. "I thought about that," he said as he sat back up. "While you were still at the library I was making phone calls—all the old tenants I could locate." He turned the notebook around, showed Dean the list. "None of them had any problems in that house. None of them heard weird noises, saw intruders, had phantom rats, bad electricity, or weird leaks."

Dean grunted, rubbing at his nose. A dull, weary throb persisted behind his eyes. "Alright, Research King, you have any ideas about what else it could be?"

Sam sighed, shoulders rolling forward. "I'm not saying it's not a haunting. I just can't tell where it's coming from."

Dean closed his mouth. He resumed the absent tapping of the pencil on his knee. "What if it's not the house?" he pulled. "What if it's the family? They've only lived there a year. It could be something haunting _them_."

"Right, but we asked, remember? Janine told us nothing like this has ever happened before. She said she had no idea why anyone would target them, dead or alive. Most recent deaths in the family were her grandmother, six months ago—heart failure—and her husband, a year and a half ago—work accident. Hardly vengeful spirit material. Besides, this all started only six weeks ago. If something's haunting the family, why now?"

Dean closed his eyes. He felt drained, like a vampire had fanged into him and sucked all his energy. He kicked his legs up and leaned back against the bed's dingy pillows. "Okay, six weeks ago, let's look at that. What happened six weeks ago?"

He heard Sam stand, heard his feet drag across the carpet, the click of his computer opening. "Your guess is as good as mine. We can ask Janine again, but I think we're going to get the same answer: Nothing."

Dean dug his fingers into his eyelids. Tiny blue sparks appeared in the blackness when he let go.

"You think whatever Caleb wants to tell us will help?" Sam asked.

Dean opened his eyes. The blue sparks stayed in his vision. "Maybe, but I don't want to sit around and wait for him to crack this for us. He's waiting to see if he can trust us and that may take awhile."

"You could ask him."

Dean looked across at his brother, noting his wary eyes and cautious expression. He sighed. "I could ask, but if I'm reading him right, he's not going to tell us until he's ready. We can't push him."

Sam dragged a finger over his eyebrow, looked out through the curtain and rocked back in his chair. A sliver of sun splashed onto his hair. "What if he's never ready to talk?" His eyes flashed furtively at Dean.

"Then we find other ways to figure this out."

Sam paused, opening his mouth like he wanted to say something. He closed his lips and nodded instead. He arched his spine and popped his neck to the side. Dean figured Sam had to have the neck-crick from hell after the way he'd zonked at the table.

Sam straightened and checked his watch. "Alright, we have a few hours yet." His eyes settled on Dean. "I'm going to check a few more things, but, you should…" He waved a hand in Dean's direction. "You should get some sleep." His voice soft with an edge of compassion Dean didn't want to think about. The same tone Sam used when he was four, tugging on Dean's sleeve and asking quietly, _Why don't we have a mom?_

Dean squinted back at Sam, thumbed his forehead more and, rubbed his eyes. "You sure? You didn't exactly get a full eight hours yourself."

"I got more than you," Sam shot. He smiled briefly, adding a nod. "I'm sure." He gestured at his computer, the books and stacks of papers. "I got this. You just…" He stopped himself, shook his head, darted his eyes at Dean then focused back on his computer. "Just get some sleep."

Dean gave Sam a sidelong glance, turned away and slumped back on his pillows. A moment later he flipped to his side and dragged his jacket over his face. He tried to pull Zeppelin into his mind, but it wouldn't come.

"You know," Sam said, a moment later, voice toeing around eggshells. "It's times like this I wish Dad were here. He'd have this figured out already."

Dean felt a prickle down his spine but didn't comment. He wasn't sure if Sam was waiting for him to or not and he didn't want to drag the jacket off his face to find out.

It was one of those things Sam just said sometimes. It could mean something or nothing, an awkward olive branch or another trap—the kind of trap Sam had laid out all over the place after Dad died. It felt out of place now, an odd statement, thrown like a blanket over Sam's earlier question about Mom, pressing down on Dean's head.

When Dean finally fell asleep, he dreamed of it, and her, watched her face overlay John's in his memories and it felt like betrayal. The space inside him that'd been hollow since he was four twisted a little, bending out of shape.

He dreamed of carrying Sam out of the house and no parent following them at all.

He dreamed of sitting next to his sleeping baby brother, late at night, two weeks after the fire, imagined his mother still with them, as he had back then, imagined her talking about angels and reaching out as if to touch their hair.

He dreamed of Caleb and Epper staring at Janine on the ceiling while her stomach bled out and flames licked around her. Caleb looked straight at Dean, closed his mouth tight and put his hands over his eyes. _Stop_, he whispered.

Dean woke, gasping jaggedly into Sam's rough shake.

-----------------------

tbc


End file.
